Increasingly, the general public has been demanding that businesses provide goods and services in a quick and convenient manner. In response, automated and stand alone public access stations, such as kiosks, automated teller machines, and vending machines, were implemented to meet the demands of consumers. Such public access stations enabled a consumer to have access to the goods and services of the participating businesses from an easily accessible public place, such as an airport, department store, grocery store or shopping mall.
For example, kiosks have been placed in public places for dispensing documents on demand. The kiosks have included an input device to enable the consumer to select a desired document type, and to determine the information to be contained on the document. Contained within the confines of the kiosks, and inaccessible to the consumer, a processing device utilizes the information input by the consumer to cause a printer to produce the desired document. Once printed, the document was delivered to an access tray in the kiosk to enable the consumer to obtain the document. A payment receiving arrangement was coupled to the processing arrangement to obtain payment for the desired printed document.
In particular, the use of laser printers in the kiosks was preferred to produce the document. Laser printers provided many advantages, including high speed capability and high quality output.
To enable the laser printers to deliver the printed document to the access tray, the laser printers were required to have relatively complicated transport mechanisms. As a result, standard off the shelf laser printers were not suitable for use in the kiosks. Instead, special laser printers having special maintenance requirements were required to be used in the kiosks, thereby increasing the cost to construct and maintain the kiosks.
Therefore, it would highly desirable to have a new and improved sheet presenter that is universally adaptable for standard off the shelf laser printers located in a non-accessible location for delivering printed documents through an opening to an accessible location.